As a five-time Champions League winner, the 34-year-old understands this competition better than most. When it comes to the knockout stages, previous form and overall quality of play mean very little, and winning is ultimately decided by which team converts their chances.

While Bronze felt the Blues had done enough to warrant a place in the semi-final, she acknowledged our London rivals had been the better finishers in the first leg, which was the key factor in their progression to the next round.

‘There wasn’t much more we could do across both legs, to be honest,’ she said after the final whistle. ‘It felt like we were probably the better team, but we weren’t the most clinical.

‘That was the difference between the two sides; they had clinical finishers in the first game, which gave us a bit of an uphill battle against a top team.

‘We know Arsenal are a really good team. We knew we could get the win tonight, which is obviously what we did, but it was too late at the end, and we had too many missed chances – crossbars included. We gave ourselves a little bit too much to do from the first leg.’

With a two-goal deficit to overturn, Chelsea just came up short in the second leg. Even with an increasingly higher standard of opposition, Bronze doesn’t think that necessarily means we are a long way from what is required to achieve our aims in Europe.

‘We’re not far off, the competition has tightened up, and as I said, the first leg just killed us a little bit. We went toe-to-toe with Arsenal, who are the current champions, and we beat them tonight. We probably should’ve had a better result in the first game as well, so we’re there or thereabouts.

‘I think many teams are at the level, and it depends on each game. I think that was the same in the final last year. Everyone had Barcelona down as favourites, but Arsenal went out on the day and clinched it.

‘That’s just the Champions League; you have to show up and make it count in the big moments and score the goals.’

This Chelsea side has no shortage of strong leaders within the squad who can speak after tough results, and Bronze explained how the team pulled together after Wednesday night’s Champions League exit.

Monday will see us compete for a place in the Women’s FA Cup semi-final when we face Tottenham at Kingsmeadow, and the players will be channelling the positives from their Champions League performance at Stamford Bridge into that fixture.

Bronze said: ‘I spoke afterwards, and just said we could be proud of what we did. We hit the inside of the post, the ‘keeper made some really good saves, and I don’t think Hannah (Hampton) had any big saves to make.

‘It was just to say that we could be proud of ourselves, we were the better team – we won the game today – and just to take that energy and that focus into the rest of the season because we’ve still got things to play for.’